A former president, red-faced,
bawls his rage at Fox News` Chris Wallace, who had asked
why he
had not shut down bin Laden and Co. in the seven
years he had to do it. The president of the United
States
declaims to a partisan audience in Alabama, "The
Party of FDR and Harry Truman has become the party of
cut and run."

Is this how the great republic
fights and wins its wars?

America has taken on the aspect of
France`s Fourth Republic after the fall of Dien Bien Phu
in 1954. Case in point: "State
Of Denial,"
by Bob Woodward of Watergate fame.

As White House press secretary
Tony Snow said, the book is cotton candy. It melts
in one`s mouth. There seems to be little here that is
new, shocking or significant. That confidential memos at
State and the National Security Council conflicted with
the rosier rhetoric of President Bush is hardly news to
a nation, a majority of whose people now believe Iraq
was a mistake. All it means is that our commander in
chief has tried to maintain the morale of the home
front.

Among other revelations, we learn
that Robert Blackwill of the NSC sent a memo to Condi
Rice arguing that 40,000 more troops were needed in
Iraq, that George Tenet and J. Cofer Black of the CIA
went to see Condi to warn her something big was up, two
months before 9-11, that Chief of Staff Andy Card pushed
to have Donald Rumsfeld replaced, that Kissinger met
often with President Bush to insist that victory is the
only real exit strategy. But Henry has been
writing that in The Washington Post.

What is going on here?

People recently removed from power
are leaking to Woodward to ensure that the first draft
of history shows that their sage counsel had been
ignored. They are scoring points off their own
president, who once entrusted them with high office.

Among the more important
revelations, however, is an unstated one. So badly are
things going in Iraq that men who once had influence
over U.S. war policy feel compelled to cut loose of that
policy and of the policymakers: Bush, Dick Cheney,
Rumsfeld and Rice. This book exposes their fear that
America may be losing the war—and their determination to
swim clear of culpability before the ship goes down.

Of significant interest is the
comment of Gen. Abizaid, Centcom commander, to two
friends from Vietnam days: "We`ve got to get the
(expletive) out of here," meaning out of Iraq.

Asked by his friends about his
victory strategy, Abizaid replied, "That`s not my
job." A jolting comment indeed from the general who
is to lead us to victory. [Secret
Reports Dispute White House Optimism, By Bob
Woodward, Washington Post October 1, 2006;]

Unlike history, Woodward`s books
are fast-paced, frothy reads that reward his sources by
heroizing them and paint those who decline to confess to
Bob as obtuse, oblivious to what`s going on. In earlier
books, when things appeared to be going well in Iraq and
Afghanistan, this White House collaborated, and was
rewarded. Almost all emerged as sagacious and strong.
This time, Woodward met with closed doors.

Understandably, for things are not
going well in Afghanistan or Iraq, though we do not need
another book to tell us that. The question that needs
answering is: What do we do now?

According to the National
Intelligence Estimate, leaked to The New York Times
and partially declassified last week, our intel
agencies believe the U.S. invasion of Iraq has so
inflamed the Arab and Muslim world it has spawned
terrorism. Yet, the same NIE argues that a too-rapid
withdrawal could mean collapse of the Iraqi regime,
triumph for the jihadists and a calamity for the United
States.

But, then, we did not need the NIE
to tell us that, either. For the American public, 60
percent of whom believe Iraq was a mistake, also opposes
immediate withdrawal, fearing the disaster of which the
NIE warns.

Still, the Woodward book, the NIE
and the savagery of this campaign seem certain to create
a crisis for Bush after November.

How, after all, when one`s former
aides are telling Woodward the White House and the
Pentagon blundered in their management of the war, does
one convince the American people they did not?

How, after Bush has called the
Democratic Party a cut-and-run crowd, and Democrats have
accused the White House and Pentagon of being
incompetents in fighting the war in Iraq, does one ask
for and receive bipartisan support to stay the course?

What do our troops in Iraq, who
risk their lives every day, think when they read that
their commanding general believes, "We`ve got to get
the (expletive) out of here," and that a victory
strategy is "not my job."

France`s defeat at Dien Bien Phu in
Indochina lead to a second war of national liberation in
Algeria, the fall of the Fourth Republic and the call
for Gen. de Gaulle to assume power. The general did, and
he rang down the curtain on the French Empire.